Harbinger

“I made your delivery to Broon. He didn’t want it.”

“Is that a fact.”

“Yeah,” Qui

Ganz sat up, leaned forward, and plucked the chip off the floor. Holding it between his thick fingers, he stared at it for a moment. Then he looked at Qui

The Orion merchant-prince’s chin was level with Qui

If street-fighting as a boy had taught Qui

“But you came back anyway.”

“You told me to sell your cargo,” Qui

“Good answer,” Ganz said. “I don’t know how you made it back here alive. I don’t even know how you got that hardware through Starfleet customs. I don’t want to know.” Leaning down, he filled Qui

Taking that as his cue to leave, Qui

Qui

“You should have killed Broon and his men when you had the chance,” Zett said.

“I don’t kill unless I have to,” Qui

“That’s because you live small and have no imagination,” Zett said. “You humiliated Broon then sold guns to his rival. He’ll send people after you. Assassins. There’ll be nowhere you can go that he won’t find you.”

“You’re wrong,” Qui

Zett sneered. “Your insolent japes won’t save you when Broon’s men come calling.”

“No, but they’ll make my death eminently quotable.” They passed a man who was facedown on the cards table, weeping into an empty stretch of felt where his chips used to be. Qui

“You could not do my job,” Zett said.

“Yeah, I hear being head waiter is hard work.” He guzzled the last of the booze and lobbed the empty glass at Zett. “Think fast.” The man reflexively caught it in one perfectly manicured hand. “Good catch,” Qui

The muffled crash of the thrown glass against the other side of the closed turbolift door brought a malicious smirk to Qui

Several minutes later, he was ambling through the middle of Stars Landing. He ducked down a shortcut, a long and narrow sliver of space between two buildings. He was almost at the end when a large humanoid silhouette blocked his path. A stray shaft of light glinted off the man’s pistol, which was steadily leveled in Qui

Qui

The gunman tensed, as if he had suffered a full-body muscle cramp. His knees wobbled, he crumpled downward, and then he fell on his face with a dull thud—revealing a tall and slender feminine silhouette behind him, one hand still extended to where the man’s shoulder had been. The woman stepped over the fallen assassin and strode forward, elegant and purposeful.

Gri

T’Pry

Tim Pe

“Hi, honey! Surprise!” She stood in the middle of the living room, holding an ugly knickknack in one hand and his favorite pint glass in the other. Dozens of tiny bits of her tourist-trap junk from around the galaxy now littered his once-pristine shelves and tables. He stared at her, expressionless, like a man fresh from a difficult session at the dentist.

“Lora,” he said, shocked into a monotone. “You’re here.”

“I got a spot on an earlier transport,” she said, then tossed her bit of junk and his pint glass on the sofa and flung herself on top of him. Draping her arms over his shoulders and behind his neck, she said with a lascivious grin, “I insisted.”

His smile looked and even felt genuinely happy. It was a reflex. “And how could they say no, right?”

“Exactly,” Lora said. She kissed him, hard and hungry, with a passion that he was sure would swallow him whole unless he pulled back. He fought the urge and threw himself into the moment. The hesitation in his actions felt obvious to him, and he expected to be taken to task for it any second now. Instead, Lora broke away first, did a small pirouette, and laughed. “I saw a lot of cute little shops along the boulevards when I was coming in,” she said. “Restaurants, too. Want to get di

“I’m not really hungry,” he said, his melancholy slowly rising to the fore despite his conscious effort to suppress it.

“Quick, call security,” she said. “Someone must’ve stolen your stomach. You’re always hungry.” She shrugged. “Later, then. Whenever you like.” She began moving around the room, rearranging all her little bits of junk in ways that subtly eclipsed what few personal items he had chosen to adorn his living room shelves and tables with. It was as if he suddenly didn’t exist in the apartment he’d occupied alone for more than three months. “You’ve certainly settled in,” she said. Obliviously shifting and moving his life around, she prattled on, “If I know you, you’ve already got your routine all worked out. Up early, swimming laps, then somewhere obscure for a café con leche. A hard day chatting people up and trying to trick your editor into reimbursing your di